Millions of women are responsible for the energy in their homes. Many use firewood, or waste, to make fires to cook, wash, clean and provide heat. In rural areas, getting connected to a centralized grid, can take decades. Whereas immediate solutions exist including solar and biogas. We test solutions that are affordable, and can be locally constructed, maintained and managed. We support sharing of energy solutions between communities in different countries: Algeria, Armenia, Ethiopia, Georgia, India, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Morocco, Moldova, Netherlands, Uganda and Ukraine. We work with climate experts to measure and verify how these solutions reduce Green House Gas emissions. We provide monitoring for community based energy solutions, and support their integration into national energy programs. We advocate with governments to have gender dimensions of energy plans taken into account. We provide training and financial support to create energy service providers.

We have build more than 800 solar heating systems in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus region, where winters are cold, and rural households normally use firewood. We have supported 30 grassroots community organisations in 4 countries with small grants in developing sustainable energy solutions. We have supported the creation of 5 sustainable energy cooperatives in Georgia, to scale up rural energy supply for regions where there is no natural gas grid. We have tested several different systems for domestic biogas in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Uganda. With the all-year round warm temperatures, biogas turns out to be the most affordable source of energy for cooking in Uganda. It is not only cheaper than charcoal and firewood, it also protects the forests and does not produce indoor air pollution. We have tested 10 biogas systems for low-income single-women household in Uganda and are in the process of expanding scale. We support a micro-credit support system, which allows low-income households to invest in both the biogas system and a cow to produce part of the fuel for the biogas tank.

We published a comparative study on energy cooperatives in Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans and a study in the Netherlands titled “The power of community energy – successes from Utrecht and the importance of connections for local energy”. We cooperate with other civil society organisations, scientists and UN agencies to share best practices and promote gender-responsive energy and climate programme.